A Great TV Show To Cherish

 

Humanity has been blessed with many fine art forms, four of the most commercially influential being visual art, music, literature, and film. At its best, TV drama deserves to be the contemporary equivalent of high art, as it seamlessly weaves together the essence of visual art, music, literature, and film – potentially elevating storytelling to new heights.

I think, at their best, TV dramas (and some sitcoms for that matter) are some of the finest creative achievements in human history, and I think Netflix’s Hannibal could be a contender for being one of the best of them all. I don’t always watch or read things when they first come out, but I’ve just finished all three seasons of Hannibal, and I’ve been utterly gripped and monumentally impressed with how it brilliantly fuses those four great artistic disciplines; the visual grandeur of its cinematography, the emotional depth of its music, the literary brilliance of the dialogue, and the immersive storytelling of film - into a singular evolving narrative that absolutely captivates both intellect and emotion.

It’s a psychological labyrinth of a crime thriller, plated with the most exquisite and unsettling human drama, and underwritten by one of the richest scripts ever brought to the screen Like Kubrick’s best work, it submerges the audience in a world of manipulation, fantasy, morality, and yearning – an unrelenting game of cat and mouse, and a disturbing yet compelling distorted love story built on understanding the darkest corners of the human psyche.

What I also liked about the writing is that I don’t recall a single word of bad language in it. Sure, in places it’s visually dark and sinister, but the writing has an impeccable, unsettling, literary sophistication without resorting to demeaning itself with expletives. I’m not sure it’s the best TV drama ever – I’m reluctant to claim that there is such a thing. But it’s certainly the most satisfying psychologically slow-burning, operatically nightmarish, and erudite literary masterpiece I’ve seen in a long time.